Hamas frees Israelis hostages as part of Gaza ceasefire deal
The men were paraded on stage in separate ceremonies by members of Hamas before being handed over to the Red Cross as part of a deal to exchange six hostages for 602 Palestinians.
Hamas militants on Saturday freed five Israeli hostages, among the last live captives eligible for release under the first phase of a fragile truce that is also expected to see Palestinian prisoners released.
Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38, were freed on Saturday morning local time in Rafah, southern Gaza, before Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert were handed over to Red Cross officials hours later in central Gaza’s Nuseirat area.
It capped an emotional two days in Israel, where the family of another hostage, Shiri Bibas, earlier on Saturday confirmed receipt of her remains.
Masked Hamas militants brought Shoham and Mengistu on stage in Rafah, and Cohen, Shem Tov and Wenkert were paraded in the same fashion.
“Our family has endured 10 years and five months of unimaginable suffering”, Mengistu’s family said in a statement.
Relatives of Shoham wept and embraced as they watched his handover, video released by Israel’s government showed.
“We saw that Tal seems well considering the circumstances. An enormous weight is lifted from us,” his family said in a statement.
Shoham was made to address the gathering, flanked by armed and masked fighters dressed all in black, before both men were handed over to the Red Cross which then drove them away in a convoy.
“A short while ago, accompanied by IDF (military) and ISA (security agency) forces, the two returning hostages crossed the border into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement soon after.
Hamas on Friday said that it expects Israel to release 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange.
Of those, 50 had been sentenced to life imprisonment and another 60 are serving long sentences, while 445 were detained in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and held without charge.
In the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, hundreds gathered at a site known as ‘Hostages Square’ reacted with applause, some appearing to weep, as they watched a broadcast of the release.
Four other hostages are to be freed on Saturday morning in a separate ceremony in central Gaza.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum had published the names of the six Israelis to be freed. The list included Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert and Hisham al-Sayed as well as Mengistu and Shoham.
Sayed and Mengistu had been held in Gaza for around a decade. The hostages were freed under the first phase of a ceasefire deal which began on January 19 and is due to expire in early March.
A Hamas source told AFP that the Islamist group planned to also release four hostages from central Gaza’s Nuseirat later in the morning.
Well-rehearsed Hamas ceremony
At both locations the militants prepared for a now well-rehearsed ceremony, building stages in front of large posters advertising the militants’ cause or praising fallen fighters.
The Red Cross has repeatedly appealed for handovers to take place in a dignified manner.
Under a cold winter rain in Rafah, Hamas staged a show of force after months of bombardment and strikes that killed the group’s top leaders. Some fighters held automatic weapons, others rocket launchers, as nationalistic Palestinian music blared.
Hamas’s green flag flew around the square on buildings destroyed by the war.
A spokeswoman for the NGO told AFP that most were Gazans arrested after the war began. She added that some of the prisoners would be deported outside of Israel and the Palestinian territories after their release.
Those expected to be expelled were serving heavy sentences.
The ceasefire has so far seen 21 living Israeli hostages freed from Gaza in exchange for more than 1100 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.
Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7 attack that sparked the war. There are 65 hostages still in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1215 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
Years of captivity end for Mengistu
Mengistu, a 38-year-old Israeli of Ethiopian descent, has spent more than 3800 days in captivity since crossing over to Gaza over a decade ago.
Shoham, a 39-year-old Israeli with Austrian and Italian citizenship, was abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 along with eight other members of his extended family.
This included Shoshan Haran, 67; Avshalom Haran, 66; Lilach Lea Kipnis, 60; Adi Shoham, 38; Naveh Shoham, 8; Yahel Gani Shoham, 3; Sharon Avigdori, 52; and Noam Avigdori, 12.
Shoham was visiting Be’eri for the holiday of Simchat Torah, with his wife and children on October 7, because his wife had grown up there.
Shoham’s wife and children were also taken captive by Hamas and held together but separately from Tal.
His wife, Adi, and children, Naveh and Yahel, now aged 9 and 4, were released in the first hostage deal on November 25, 2023, after 50 days.
Agencies
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